Fresh Flavor For Your Ears: 7 New Latin Songs

Traveling for leisure is a modern concept. Before the mid-19th century, voyaging for fun (and sometimes for health reasons) was limited to the wealthy. For everyone else, traveling was either out of necessity (diaspora) or a vocation: sailors, explorers, the military. One of my favorite works of literature, The Odyssey, is heavy with the melancholy inherent to knowing you've been destined to roam the Earth. It is fate, and if there was one thing the Greeks knew well, it was that you do not escape fate. The melancholy of those who roamed like Odysseus was also in part the resigned terror of the possibility that one might never return.

This week on Alt.Latino, we delve into something we haven't paid much attention to in the past: fado, one of the most hauntingly sad genres of music. Born in the ports of Portugal, fado is rooted in the Latin word fatum (fate) and consists simply of a singer's laments, interwoven with guitar. One of the oldest known forms of fado is fado do marinheiro, or the sailor's fado, sung for and by sailors at the port. Sample lyrics: "Perdido lá no mar alto/Um pobre navio andava/Já sem bolacha e sem rumo/A fome a todos matava." (Lost in the high seas/a poor boat wandered/with no food and no direction/hunger was killing them all.)

In the beginning of this week's show we play "Quando O Sol Espreitar De Novo" (When The Sun Peeks Out Again), a warm fado by Ana Moura. We end on a chillier note, with Los Angeles-based La Santa Cecilia's "El Hielo (ICE)." It's a very different song — a bittersweet tune that weaves in the stories of different immigrants to the U.S., and their fear of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). It might seem a stretch comparing fado, the music of Portuguese sailors, to a song about immigration today. But the same string of emotion runs through it.

In our increasingly interconnected world, travel is for leisure and for work; yet a considerable portion of humanity embarks on voyages of diaspora that Odysseus himself would fear. The circumstances are different, but the melancholy, the longing and the resigned terror of the possibility of never finding a home is the same. And for those of us privy to conversations that happen behind the closed doors of immigrant communities, the desperation and frustration, the sense of being fated to roam the world forever is real.

But then again, even Odysseus made it back home. Join us today for some exceptionally good music and conversation, and as always, we hope you can join in and let us know what you've been listening to lately, and what is on your mind.